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Social Spending Dominates Budgets

In 1870, all government spending was 7.3 percent of national income in the United States.

By 2007, the figures were 36.6 percent for the U.S.

Military costs once dominated budgets; now, social spending does.

The great expansion of America's welfare state occurred in the 1960s and 1970s with the creation of Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. In 1960, 26 percent of federal spending represented entitlement payments for individuals; in 2010, the figure was 66 percent.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Giveaways Damaging Will to Work of People

Some may laugh at this man, but at least he is offering to work to earn his food.

During fiscal year 2012, the U.S. government spent a record $80.4 billion on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the “Food Stamp” program - a $2.7 billion increase from 2011.

Federal spending on SNAP has increased each year during President Obama’s first term in office. In 2009 -- when SNAP was still known as the “Food Stamp” program -- the government spent approximately $56 billion.

By 2010, spending increased to $70.5 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the number of SNAP participants increased by seventy percent.

There are an estimated 47 million individuals, about 15 percent of Americans, who use food stamps. The average monthly benefit per person is about $130.

The number of Americans on food stamps was 17 million in 2000. It has nearly tripled in just 12 years.
During 2012, the U.S. government ran a $1.089 trillion deficit.

What this suggests is that the US government is mismanaging this nation so woefully that there is not the opportunity and/or incentive for nearly 15 percent of Americans to be ready, willing and able to feed themselves by their own exertions.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter - Publisher Frank Parlato Jr. www.niagarafallsreporter.com

Jan 15 , 2013